As I mentioned in the previous blog entry, NYE was pretty boring for us. We took Max to the park on New Year's Day to give him a break from "Cement City". He got to play in the water but didn’t quite understand all these fish swimming around him. He is happy to remain ignorant in his ego-centric view that there is no world as important as the one above the surface. We can’t have fish coming out of the water invading on our land!
I played with a new group of tennis players this morning. They were decent and only 1 or 2 weird ones. Reminding you about the title of this blog entry again. They were really weird though, like, “are you ok or is there a medical diagnosis attached to that behavior” type weird.
Spending these days working on computer prepping for trip to Chiang Mai next week. Since I will be riding the motorcycle up there and Max and Amy will be following in a private van the following day I need to make sure everything goes smooth. I also want to hit the ground running with tennis and off-road motorcycle rides. I am always fiddling with new navigation apps and software to discover routes. We had dinner at "Cobana" restaurant down the street. Thai decorations at the restaurant, and in general, are so random. It looks like they just pull a bunch of stuff out of the garbage. Some streamers here, a sequin 3ft teddy bear over here. Some neon lights in the shape of a Heart EKG there. We were taking a cab one night and I saw all these little pop up bars/restaurants. I realized, they just get a string of lights and put some chairs out front and now it is a bar. Next year it might be a hair salon. Resourceful. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I started feeling better the day I was to head out on the 10hr motorcycle ride to Chiang Mai ( I had been sick). In the morning we went downtown to get my drivers license renewed. I have to do this every 2 years. This whole trip has been about dealing with the Department of Land Transport. We had to go today or all my residence forms and doctor’s notes would be expired. It was actually pretty funny.
As I probably have mentioned, they have this one booth that everyone goes to and its just a mess. People yelling from all sides at the ladies inside trying to show papers, get explanations on what to get copied, get appointment dates written on a 1970s free bank calendar.
When I finally got passed the gatekeeper I was shuffled into the testing room. It was like a set of carnival games. At the first station I had 2, 3in tall metal rods standing vertically about 15ft from me and they moved forward and backward independently on 2 conveyer belts. I had to press a button when I thought they were right next to each other for spatial awareness. The 2nd game was a set of runway lights. I had to press down on the brake pedal in front of me when the lights started and stop them before too many lit up down the line to show quick reaction. The 3rd game was color-blindness. I was handed a video controller and showed 10 different lights and after each one I had to click on my controller whether red, green or yellow.
I was very fortunate to pass. Many people screwed up, but were given unlimited attempts. I am not so sure they would have been as kind to the tall white foreigner. I got my new DLs and packed up the bike and raced out of Bangkok about 1pm.
About 5 minutes from our house my phone fell off the mount on the motorcycle handlebar. Or I should say the glue on my counterfeit mount gave out. I was fortunate not to lose the phone and also that it happened on the entrance ramp to freeway and not 5 seconds later. I pulled into the first opened space (auto garage / restaurant / bar/ temple) and got glue out of my emergency pack. While I was working on my bags, some guy was trying to move his truck and I had to move my bike. It is really annoying in Bangkok to try and just take a timeout to work on something on the phone or test the bike out. Unfortunately every corner is chaos, so its not like back in the US where you just head out in the neighborhood to test something out. You are almost run over here every 20 seconds and there is no place to just pull over and chill. While I was trying to find a safe spot a guy came out to see if he could help. He brought me his glue and took pictures with me and invited me to join his church. I lost the picture unfortunately. All very strange, but I was on my way pretty quick.
I found a hotel in some random town when it started getting dark and walked to find food. I feel like it took my 4 hours to get out of Bangkok. You could fit the whole state of Michigan within the urban footprint of Bangkok.
Another 6 hour day before I made it to Chiang Mai. About 1 hour short of the destination I had a 55 Gallon drum roll off the side of a truck into my lane. It felt like a video game as I tried to judge the barrel rate of travel across my lane and determined which side of it to take.
I was in town before Amy and Max so I just stopped at some motorcycle shops. Once they arrived we all checked into the AirBNB I had reserved. A house that allowed pets on the on the East side of the river, about .5km from East Gate of Old City.
I walked up to a pizza place around the corner to meet some people from a local Moto FB group. Nice crowd of motorcycle and scooter riders that plan multi-day trips around Thailand. The restaurant was serving “Detroit-style” pizza, which was interesting. Small world. That night I found this cockroach in the bathroom. Well, Amy found it. I carried him out to the sewer and he was in heaven. I figured this was going to be a regular nightly visitor but that actually was the only one for the whole month.
First day in Chiang Mai. We walked to a traditional restaurant for lunch, taking some pictures along the way
I took this picture to show how high the floods got in October of last year. You can see the mark on the cement wall, maybe 4.5ft. The dried, dirt-covered items seem to all be left in there place around the city.
We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant around the corner, Kitchen Hush.
After dinner I played tennis against a Korean guy from NYC who travels here a few weeks each year as a mental break. We met at the Chiang Mai University courts. He thoroughly beat me. I have real trouble seeing the ball at night, but even in the daytime he was much better than me as I just could not catch up with the pace of his shots. Hopefully as I play stronger competition I can become a bit quicker in my motions.
The next morning I joined Pump Fitness 2.0. A basic gym that has everything I need. It is full of young people covered in their latest Thai tattoos which I can only assume express their life-changing experiences of traveling to Thailand. I have not been around young people much and to be honest it is kinda cringe-worthy as I feel embarrassed for them as they pose constantly in front of mirrors, even removing their shirt and flexing, or woman standing in provocative positions for the camera. This quickly turns to frustration as they spend 20 minutes on a machine I am waiting for, because they are checking Instagram in between every exercise. Previous generations did not understand my behavior and I guess I am no different.
I rode out to a reservoir with the bike. My tool compartment fell open at some point and lost all my tools and documents. I was able to reprint most of it locally.
After riding a bit I stopped at some guys house to get new Auxiliary lights installed on the bike
He only charged me $35 for parts and labor. I gave him a big tip. Amy doesn’t think I should do this, but I can’t help it. I feel like I am taking advantage of people if I don’t at least pay ½ of western prices. The money means more to them than it does to me anyway. We walked to dinner at Riverside Restaurant by the house. I am starting to get sick again. Just can’t stay healthy. This trend continues for the rest of the time here in Thailand, but not complaining as I will be fine.
Amy left the next morning to fly to Phuket to spend a few days with her family snorkeling in the Similan / Surin Islands.
This left Max and I to fend for ourselves for food and entertainment. I walked along the river the first night
I played tennis with another young guy today. I played better during day but still was defeated. I just need to end points quicker against young people because by the 4th shot in a rally, especially in this heat, I just run out energy. Need to get to the net quickly any chance I can. Regardless, happy to be able to play without the debilitating back pain I have dealt with the last few years.
Just West of the main square of Chiang Mai is the large mountain known as Doi Suthep-Pui National Park. I downloaded a route for it on my navigation and decided to ride up it and look for dirt roads. When I created the route options, I color coded them (Green for easy-paved, yellow for medium and red for difficult) I determined this based on people’s description and pictures of the route.
As I was riding up the winding, paved road I should have thought more about the trucks carrying mountain bikes. There were a bunch of companies that carried people and bikes up to the top and then they rode the trails down.
I stopped near the top at a campsite
Instagrammers in the wild:
Then found a coffee shop at the top
When the pavement ended I followed the yellow track and it ended at some guys house. In these jungles, I have found, that if the trail is not regularly used, the forest reclaims it after a year. I backtracked and took the green (easy route). It quickly devolved from double-track (4x4 road) into a single-track (hiking or game trail). I started getting nervous as I was going down a mountain and if I ran into trouble I would need to somehow go back uphill. After this trip I started looking at elevation of trails, and vowed not to do steep off-road by myself. Each turn and advancement left me considering, “Can I get back up this trail if it dead-ends?” Then I came to this
Hy heart sank. There was no way I was getting over it, nor did I really want to. I was also on a 30 degree decline. I worked for about 10 minutes to flip bike around by spinning it the kickstand in place. I then climbed on and opened throttle to try and climb. I made it about 20 ft before falling off when getting stuck in some deep sand and roots. I took a break and was able to get the bike uphill by walking next to it while running wide open in 1st gear. I was eventually able to get back on and had to go much faster than I would have liked to keep the bike upright and moving forward uphill. When I got to a safe space at the last fork-in-the-road, I took a break, gathering that I was following mountain bike trails, not Motorcycle trails. The problem was that my “easy” green trail just ended and I had no other option. I opened my map looking for other routes. I could backtrack all the way to top and head down on paved but that would be challenging. I followed some trails that also dead-ended before finding a 4x4 track that seemed promising.
I was able to find the road on google maps and just follow it like a maze with my finger. When it ended I backtracked my finger until I found a path that extended out to civilization and then proceeded on that road. I got to a point where I could actually punch my Airbnb into google and it showed me the quickest way home. This didn’t mean it was any safer, but I was hoping it was a well-traveled route. A rode in Google Maps for Thailand could still be a dirt trail.
All along I was terrified of another tree across the road or a closed gate. The first time through a new trail is always tough because you don’t know what is around the corner and backtracking uphill is not a good option. When I got to what I thought was a main intersection in Google maps, it was just 2 trails crossing. Another 20 minutes and 3 guys on small dirtbikes zipped passed me. I was very relieved as I was headed where they were coming from. Weird that they had people on the back of their bikes. Not many people choose to ride on the back of a dirtbike. The first bump and you will be counter-bounced off a cliff. I finally popped out at the reservoir from the other day. When I was there the other day I saw a place offering ATV and motorbike tours. Now the people on back of dirtbikes made sense....kinda.
A look back at the hill I just descended and the map of my route
One funny thing: Headed home on road I could not get my left turn signal to turn off. I was slamming it, doing everything I could to free the switch, but no luck. After about 15 minutes I realized it was not my turn signal that was on but my hazard lights. Because I had flipped my phone mount vertical, it covered over the right turn signal on my display. Amusing because earlier in the day when I decided to flip the phone vertical, I noticed it would cover my display and that probably was not a good thing.
I played tennis that evening at a drop-in event. They would not let me play until I paid $7. I asked who I would play? “No Pay!, No Play!” was the response. I paid and they stuck me with 3, 80yo ladies. I stayed for a few games while everyone else laughed at me. I felt like I was a loser on Monty Hall’s “Let's Make a Deal” gameshow and instead of choosing the car behind door number 1 I got the duck corralled in chicken wire behind door number 3.
The next day I rode out to a fire tower I found coordinates for online. It followed the beginning of the famous Samoeng Loop around Doi Suthep Mountain. I stopped for coffee when I got off the main route.
The Samoeng Loop is dangerous as it is full of westerners who rented a scooter and behave in unpredictable erratic fashion along to road. I was able to follow the route and reached the tower after only about 10 minutes off-road
There was another off-road trail starting there, Ridge Ride, but I learned my lesson yesterday about going solo into uncharted territory. I went out the way I came in and continued around the Samoeng Loop back into Chiang Mai, passing a few elephants on the shoulder (not something you see everyday). Driving through town I almost got in an accident. A car pulled out in front of me, and even though they was 30ft between us, and I was not going fast, I still skidded up against the drivers door due to all the sand and dirt on the paved roads. As my wheel kissed his door I stared at him through the glass. He just backed up and pulled around me exasperated that I had gotten in his way.
Played tennis in the evening with some guy that had just picked up a tennis racquet for the first time. I don’t mind playing lower competition, but please have some respect for the other’s time when I post on the forum what my level of play is. On top of that he was a Trump supporter. All of the young people and even older here are Trump supporters. The older one’s because they came to Thailand to exploit the sex-trade and cheap prices and young one’s because their generations are just much more self-absorbed. Not necessarily their fault. One guy asked me why I care so much about Trump being president. His comment was, “Does it affect you? Your in Thailand, just enjoy life!” My response was, “No it won’t hurt me because I am white middle class, but I care about other people and how it will hurt them.” He just looked at me like I had 2 heads.
Some more pictures from a after dinner walk
I found a guy on Facebook who also wanted to ride off-road. I figured if we went together it would be safer. We met up to try a route I found
He was half my age and twice my skill, which really is not a good combination for achieving a maximum level of safety. We chose a route I found from these “pathfinders” online. It started out double tracks and quickly went to single and then quickly devolved into a crossing a dry creek where I crashed and rolled down hill. Picture of me with front wheel up right before I lost it.
Then I fell again just standing. My bike is tall and hard to flat foot the ground, but I am also an idiot. I was getting a little nervous cause this trail was remote and no tracks. We popped out into double track again, but then soon after went into single and ended up plowing through this bike high brush. I caught a branch under my visor and nearly broke my neck as it bended back. Then we came to a wash but really tight like 4 ft across and 3 ft drop to get into it (think final scene from Star Wars). It wasn’t the trail as we learned, the trail was blocked by a newly fallen tree. We backtracked and back to road and got back onto a trail before ending at a coffee shop. When we got out, there was so much brush tied into his rear wheel it looked like a birds nest
Amy came back that afternoon, and her parents are staying with us for a week. I woke up at 1am with terrible food poisoning. It was a long night hanging out on the floor of the bathroom. I spent the whole next day in bed. Taking sedatives to try and be in a coma until it was over
I “Slimed” my bike tires yesterday to try and avoid future punctures, and today I looked at tires and major cracks.
This means Slime was for naught because I have to replace tires anyway. I used moto community to find decent tires and tubes in Thailand, now to find out where I can get and who will put on and if they will kill me for filling tires full of Slime as it is a mess to clean up; "it was the previous owner I swear!"
I was able to buy tires and tubes at a store and walk one block to dealership to put on all for less than $200. Cant believe I survived on those cracked ones for the last month. I don’t know if salt in the air or what but for 1500 miles this bike really does have some wear and tear on it. The chain and sprockets look 20 years old. Was able to fix it but bolts that aren’t stainless are all pretty rusty and need to replace. Hopefully that is done with issues for a bit.
We also went to immigration to extend my visa.
Normally, I leave the country and come back within first 60 days to fill my visa requirements, but this time it would be 90 days before leaving country for trip. What a hassle. I had to get lodging papers (TM30 form) from my Airbnb host. We are trying to stay for 30 more days, not like we are trying to become citizen here! I cant imagine the pain of trying in Bangkok. I think next year just easier to leave country.
Feeling a bit better today so what do we do but go to a German buffet. It really is good food but I was overwhelmed after coming off food poisoning. Also I really think time to try vegetarianism again as my guilt is bothering me every time I eat meat .
Driving home from dinner I ask taxi via Amy, “Can I open window its stuffy in here?” the translation came back: ”He said you cannot”
Amys parents left this morning. I did a solo onroad/offroad mix today. Was a full day of 5 hours, maybe 4.5 actual riding.
I started by going to village of Kampong. It is a tourist spot to see “Traditional Thai village” with some ties to the old King IX. It reminded me of walking around popular streets of Kyoto. Old buildings with bustling modern storefronts selling snacks. It was a bit too much for me but I am spoiled to see actual traditional villages all the time on my bike, so was kinda fabricated. Next stop was Giant Café.
It is a popular spot. I was surprised since the road to get there is kinda rough. I would not want to be a passenger in a car going here and it would take forever with how slow you have to go by anything other than moto. I sat and had coffee at the overlook. Then was on vto the off-road section.
I stole this from Enduro rider, this time not MTB but he is a little hardcore for me. Here is his video of route I did
It actually looks pretty tame but there were 2-4 sections that were a little sketchy at speed, as any moment you take eye off road you can end up in trouble so easily in a blink. Th 4x4 cement tracks are nice but have 6-10 inch deep drops on edges and a slide off them can throw you off, or just picking the wrong line and hitting a large rock. You really have to stay focused, commit with momentum but be prepared for things to go a little sideways. The alternative is to go slow and not get into trouble but risk falling over a lot due to getting stopped. I would not have wanted to do this any wetter as I crossed prob 20 streams and had some uphill in deep mud that I barely got enough traction to get out of. Not sure if I would do it again solo just for the remoteness of it. 8/10 times I would be fine but those other 2 where something happens could really be a pain in the ass.
Near the end I had an eventful episode. I was committed to a track and in a section where you could not jump between tracks. My track became pretty rocky and I accelerated, and in front of me a guy had parked his scooter while working off-trail in the forest. I should have been able to squeeze by, but I bounced off a rock and headed right at scooter. I plowed into it, heard plastic cracking and his bike went over. I did not crash but able to stay moving. I had about 3 seconds to consider my options. I could stop and check his bike, offer him money, but I thought I did not know how he would react and I did not want confrontation out here. He might not even have been around. I rarely saw the owner of scooter on trails. I was in a precarious stretch of trail and just pushed on, with more time to think about stopping I actually decided not to stop. I feel bad and hope his bike just had a cracked fender but I just did not want to risk getting my hands cut off by a machete. Now that I committed to fleeing the scene, I doubled my speed in case some old Thai guy on a broken 50cc scooter was tailing me. I didn’t even look back but it would be funny if he was right on my tail. I stopped about 30 minutes later to check on my bike.
I had no scratches. I think I caught him with my wrap around handlebars is my only thought, otherwise my fairings would have showed something. Oh well. I will live with decision and pay it forward here to someone else. Even though he was parked in road, it is my fault for coming with speed and not avoiding him. I made it back around 3pm and cleaned the bike as it was pretty muddy. It was an exhausting day of riding and we just walked to get pizza for dinner before I passed out.
I rode Mae Rim area the next day. I followed a guys single track route, but I built my own route on Gaia that was a safety valve. I labeled it as “paved”. Before I even got off what I thought was paved safety route, to get to single track, it already turned into steep dirt 4x4.
I determined then I was not going to move onto the “red “ labeled difficult route and just try and survive the easy green route. I made it through but not sure I would do solo again. One point I stopped and heard a rustling in the bushes. Some guy was hacking on a tree with machete. I was like, "how the fuck did you get up here?" (Hard to see him behind the tree trunk)
Then I went around a corner and there was a path leading down to a village. I followed my green trail back up into the mountains but it looked at least another hour of this and more elevation. I did not want to push my luck as I was tired, so I turned around and went down to village and was able to plug home into Google maps and extricate myself from area. After I got home we walked into the Main Square. I stopped by “Riders Corner” where they rent bikes for off-road. The owner, Ian, had access to digital trails I heard, so we talked, and he showed me that he had files for Garmin on SD card but could only make copies of SD and you had to had a Garmin to plug it into. I was like, you cant get the files off the SD digitally and provide? You could tell he answered this question 100x and said the guy who created it all is dead. Crazy, he just keeps making SD cards and selling for 1000 Bhat. To who, I don't know. Only in Thailand would this process seem normal. Then we walked over to a bar to watch some Austrailian Open tennis Swiss guy opened, nice place small
On way home walked by "137 Pillar Resort" $1K/night. As we passed there was this fancy , open-air shuttle leaving for a night tour. I reminded me of a universal studies excursion. It was like people going on Safari to see Thailand from safe confines.
Rode to Doi Mon Agkot mountain today. Not terrible difficult, was pretty high with nice view.
Then I went down and thought I was following a paved section home. Well, that turned out to be an adventure up over a mountain on a singletrack.
Never an easy ride these days. I kept think I had made it, then they fuck with you. I passed falling trees that someone had cut a small path through, thankfully. Need to carry a tree saw from now on. I finally got up and over to other side but took 4 hours.
Then we walked to Mexican food that was decent
Stopped at "Rider's Corner" to show guy I knew how to get his trail files off Garmin instead of selling people the SD cards like it’s the year 2000. But I guess I insulted him in front of his friends cause he said he didn’t want to. Then I said, "ok see ya" and he was like wait, let me get your info and we can discuss. Whatever. We went and watched some of the tennis finals on TV then home to wash Max
A friend from Ann Arbor came to visit us .We went to dinner at Madaam Fish Restaurant. Nice food and place to eat. Walked back through night bazaar.
I got sick for 3rd time. Amy and Iva went to an elephant sanctuary without me. Much had changed, as flooding washed away a lot of this operation (Elephant Nature Park) and people could not touch the elephants.
Next day, they went downtown to the Female Prisoners Massage, but it was sold out early, so they just walked some of the temples. That evening we went to cultural show. Amy had to meet us there as Max hurt his paw, but maybe just stabbed himself with his claw. we paid $20 to get all nails filed down which was well worth it.
Leaving Chiang Mai and back to Bangkok. I decided not to ride the bike back, hiring a guy to transport it. Hoping not repeat performance a couple years ago in the US when I hired some guy named Jervis through Uship.com and he tried to steal my bike and export it to the Bahamas
Drive back to BKK in van with a stop for unholy amount of pork rinds for Amy's family.
Bike arrived just after us. I went and joined a new gym for the month and Amy/Iva went to the Fresh market by Paradise Mall. That evening we went to Rama IX park to walk around.
Below is afunny picture of one of the park guards all decked out in a fancy uniform, while riding a pink girl's bike.
Free Zumba classes nightly at your neighborhood park!
We caught scooters to Train Market for boat noodles and Americana shops. How do they produce all this fake memorabilia. All these Vietnam-era fatigues. How do they decide which names to put on them. “Richardson” was a popular one.
Went to gym, then took Iva on full-effect scooter ride downtown. We went to Jim Thompson and Cultural center and home. I figured she needed a dangerous story to tell about her time in Bangkok so I made sure to provide her money's worth on the ride.
Went to Chinatown for lunch. Cab rides take forever. We went to a Michelin-Star restaurant and then Dim Sum.
After, Amy wanted this Chinese tea. while she was drinking it in this alley, I was watching all the oversized rats run around the produce this lady used as her equipment to make the tea. There was a cat there just watching like, “What the fuck do you want me to do? I am as scared as you are!”
Birthday today. Played tennis on the roof of a condo building downtown. Had to learn hit different overhead or send into street. Condos buildings are pretty bland but 2 million US dollars. I guess same as NYC. Don’t know why you would want it.
After tennis just worked on computer and dinner at Cabana and ride on a Songtel.
Darren
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